Layoff
Jan 2026John Jeong publicly said Hyprnote had hired five people over the prior year and eventually let all of them go, describing the company as having "fired everyone" and rebuilt around AI-driven workflows.
SourceCompany research
Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Jul 30, 2026
Overview
Hyprnote is now Char: a privacy-first, local-first AI notepad for meetings and work that captures system audio instead of joining calls as a bot, then turns notes into summaries, follow-ups, and task handoffs. The company emphasizes open source, on-device/on-prem processing, BYOK/self-hosting, and enterprise use cases for regulated teams.
Primary product
AI notepad for private meetings / AI meeting notetaker
Founded
2023
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United States
Team size
1-10
Work style
Remote
Industry
Software Development
Sub-industry
AI productivity / meeting-notes software
Offices
San Francisco, California, United States
Seoul, South Korea
Business model
freemium
subscription
enterprise/custom pricing
open-source
Funding
Stage
Seed
Total raised
$125K
Latest round
Seed · Aug 2025
Latest amount
$125K
Aug 2025 · Krew Capital
People & investors
Work & culture
Small, high-trust, product-led team with a strong bias toward craft, transparency, open source, privacy, and shipping without unnecessary process or meeting-bot friction.
Work style
Remote
Compensation
One public role listing showed compensation of $80,000-$120,000 per year; broader compensation policy is not public.
Product & market
Pricing
Freemium: a free local/BYOK tier plus a paid Pro subscription, with custom team and enterprise pricing available.
Differentiators
- —on-device / on-prem by default
- —no meeting bots; captures system audio and microphone directly
- —open-source and auditable
- —bring-your-own-key and self-hosting support
- —plain Markdown / local-file data ownership
- —enterprise compliance positioning for regulated industries
Technology
Tauri
Rust
Whisper
HyprLLM
OpenRouter
Ollama
Deepgram
AssemblyAI
Soniox
OpenAI
Anthropic
Gemini
Fly.io
Netlify
Cloudflare
Supabase
Nango
Stripe
PostHog
Sentry
Customers
regulated enterprises in finance, healthcare, and government
privacy-sensitive teams
tech firms
hospitals
law offices
individual power users who want local-first meeting notes
Competitors
Granola
Otter.ai
Fireflies.ai
Fathom
Notta
Superpowered
Scale & contact
Estimated revenue
About $440K in estimated annual revenue / ARR (2025)
Estimated monthly visits
51.3K
Traffic estimate as of Jun 2026
Signals & risks
Latest news
Char / LinkedIn · Mar 2026
Official rebrand post announcing Hyprnote is now Char and emphasizing local files, user control, and no platform between users and their data.
John Jeong / LinkedIn · Jan 2026
John Jeong publicly described a full team reduction at Hyprnote and said the company rebuilt its workflow around AI instead of headcount.
The Korea Times · Nov 2025
Profiles Hyprnote as a Seoul-based startup, says it uses an offline-capable model, and reports growth, ARR, and angel/VC interest.
Y Combinator / LinkedIn · Aug 2025
YC announced Hyprnote as an open-source AI notetaker for enterprises, highlighting on-device/on-prem processing, compliance-oriented deployment, and the launch team.
WOWTALE · Jul 2025
Reports Hyprnote secured follow-on investment after entering YC S25, with Krew Capital identified as the first investor and the company aiming at North America and Europe.
Jobs and careers at Hyprnote
0 jobs at Hyprnote
No open positions
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